The Wolf Man (1941) Review

 

The Wolf Man (1941) Review

 

Welcome back to Clayton’s Creepy Cinema!

In my first marathon of October reviews I looked at a couple of my favourite classic Universal monster movies, as well as a remake of one, The Wolfman from 2010. My opinion still stands that it is a pretty decent remake, and compared to the other “horror” efforts Universal cranked out over the past decade, it’s easily the best (forget about 2014’s Dracula Untold and 2017’s The Mummy). The 2020 remake of The Invisible Man was pretty good, but it was produced by Blumhouse (though still a Universal release) and unrelated to the intended shared universe of new films that was supposed to begin with The Mummy 2017.

For the first series in this year’s Sequel-a-Thon, I’m going to look at the original cinematic universe. That’s right, long before The Avengers were teaming up across the MCU, the classic monsters from the horror films by Universal Studios appeared in crossover films (how appropriately ironic Universal was the first to create a cinematic universe). It was the first of its kind. The initial crossover was Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, but let’s begin with the original Wolf Man, because it’s one of the greatest Universal monster movies, one of the most important examples of werewolves in film, and simply an all-time classic for horror cinema.

We get a fun title screen with some great music for the opening, and a short intro of the actors/characters with clips from the movie. I like the style of starting a movie this way, and miss this now-abandoned technique—going back to Marvel for a second, imagine if Avengers: Age of Ultron opened with something like this, how much better would that intro have been than just an overblown action scene? They did do something similar to end Avengers: Endgame with the actors signatures over images/clips, but that was after the end credits had already started. What follows The Wolf Man character intros definitely feels a little dated and clunky, though: a text definition of lycanthropy, or werewolf-ism. But, little time is wasted in getting to the story after this. In fact, little time in general is wasted with these Universal classics. The entire runtime clocks in at just over 70 minutes—and that’s pretty much average for all the debut films of these iconic monsters.

A hunting accident killed Larry Talbot’s brother, and brought Larry home to be reunited with his estranged father Sir John Talbot, played by Claude Rains (who played the Invisible Man in the 1933 original). Lon Chaney Jr. is immediately charming as Larry, and he soon charms a young woman, Gwen, who works at a shop in town. He looks to buy a cane with a silver handle in the shape of a wolf from her, and learns about werewolves. It establishes plenty of the classic lore, but there are some details included that didn’t always end up being present in later werewolf stories, like the pentagram appearing in the palm of the werewolf’s next victim.

The sets are extremely atmospheric, and a major part of what makes the movie so chilling, with fog and gloom and shadows and gnarled trees. There’s something about the environments in The Wolf Man that have stood the test of time in the same way as Dracula’s castle or Frankenstein’s laboratory. Speaking of Dracula, he’s in this, sort of. Bela Lugosi (who played Dracula in the 1931 version) plays a gypsy fortune teller, and he’s great as always. Larry is attacked by a wolf when he tries to rescue Gwen's friend Jenny, but Jenny is killed, found the next day with her throat torn out, and the fortune teller (funny enough, named Bela) is found beaten to death by Larry's cane. Larry remembers nothing. It’s a little silly when they accuse him of murder and he says he has the bite of the wolf to prove it was a wolf that did it, so he opens his shirt, looks, and goes: huh, must've healed up overnight, just like that. We the viewers don’t actually see the wound, but don’t you think Larry would be more than a little curious as to how such a serious injury could heal so fast? It’s a minor point, but does strike me as odd.

Larry is attracted to Gwen, who is engaged to another guy, Frank. Frank thinks Larry is a tragic man, and it makes the relationships between the characters more interesting. Larry meets with Maleva, the mother of the dead fortune teller Bela, and she lays it all out for him: he’s a werewolf, and he needs to deal with it. It’s a classic scene, and Maleva is a great character, too, with her distinct accent. Not long after, Larry changes into the Wolf Man for the first time. The transformation is slow; he sits in a chair, and through dissolves we see more hair grow on his legs and his feet turn into paws. He attacks a villager at night in the woods. The music is great and the makeup by Jack Pierce is awesome, even though you can see some of the seams. The Wolf Man always felt unique not just because of how human-like Larry’s alter-ego remains, but the design is one-of-a-kind, with that big afro and Lon Chaney Jr.’s expressions coming through the makeup. We only see Wolf Man in three scenes, but it feels like more than enough, and I mean that in the best way.

This idea that there is good and evil in every man's soul comes through quite strong in the story. It’s a surprisingly philosophical look at a classic concept, most famous before this in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Larry seeks to be cured of his curse before he hurts anyone else, so John fastens Larry to a chair to help him realize it's all in his head. Larry asks him to take the silver cane, and it's a good thing he does, because Larry gets out of his restraints and is hunted by the townsfolk. Larry (as the Wolf Man) pursues Gwen and chokes her out before John fights him to the death. We get a reverse transformation from monster to human which is cool, and John realizes his son was right all along...and, he just killed him. It's a very dramatic ending with everything wrapped up in a fittingly tragic way.

Even beyond the monster, the characters and dialogue are impactful and memorable. There’s this great line from Sir John: “You police are always in such a hurry, as if dead men don't have an eternity.” Or the classic poem recited more than once: “Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night; May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” Those much-repeated words are actually original to this screenplay, but have been misremembered as an actual legend predating the film. Strangely enough, there are some omissions of the usual werewolf movie fare: no full transformation from man to wolf is shown, and no full moon is shown at any point. In the lore of this movie, the transformation occurs when wolfsbane blooms, not just when the moon is full, and the curse is firmly within the realm of the supernatural.

The Wolf Man is right up there as one of the best horror movies of its era. I didn’t love it as much when I was younger, but I grew to appreciate it more as I got older, and I find it gets better every time I watch it. No sequel could duplicate it or top it in terms of its well-rounded cast or screenplay, but each sequel was worthy of carrying the legacy in different ways.